“If you could choose only one of the following two inventions, indoor plumbing or the Internet, which would you choose?” -Robert J. Gordon Justin Fox is the latest pundit to ring the &#…

The hierarchy of innovation

Product Manager

The hierarchy of innovation- Grapevine

Innovation

Founder

Welcome to Product Managers's Private Community

Saw a college chick that was a big proponent of "smashing capitalism" and installing a marxist/communist system. It got me thinking why do people hate capitalism? First thing that's interesting is that people don't know what capitalism is. Discuss what it is, as it seems to be hotly debated on its beginning, etc.

To start, the Wikipedia page is wrong on the definition of capitalism. It describes it through the lens of Marxism and calls it an economic system.

Capitalism more so resembles a social system based on individual rights.

The economic system under capitalism that advocates for private industry and production, would be the free market economy. 

Adam Smith described capitalism using the emergence of the division of labor:
"Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society. "

The people who understand the practicality of life, know they must develop some ability to produce something that may lead to a valuable and exchangeable surplus that can be traded on the market.

Capitalism is social and natural while the economic system must be reflected in the private and individual institutions that allow for the free exchange of goods.

Why do people hate capitalism?

What Is Capitalism, When Did It Start, Or Is It Natural?

Software Developer

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Lately, I have been thinking very deeply about my college days when the Flipkart story had inspired the entire lot of my batch at IIT-D. We were starry eyed college kids who wanted to do something innovative in India and break away from the "three" most popular moves after IIT:

1. UPSC
2. MBA
3. MS/PhD abroad

I proceeded to then work in various Indian startups and noticed an alarming thing. I began to realise a pattern across all my stints:

The initial founding team does exceptional work innovating, they excel at what Thiel calls "Zero to One", the act of creation. I will concede that although most founders fail to innovate by often copying what worked in the west but the initial founding team usually excels in execution. It allows for initial traction as it breathes a fresh breath in the\ space that they are operating in.

Almost always, when Product Market Fit is "achieved"(whatever that means), the founders begin to deploy insane amounts of funds into growth. 

By definition, Growth is not a bad thing. But, I have been noticing that across all startups I have worked at( all raised funds from the largest global funds) that it comes at the expense of product building. And during this era of hypergrowth, the product starts to stagnate while focus becomes marketing and sales. 

I often felt that this was temporary. That once we reach enough scale, we would start to innovate again. 
But time and time again, the ability to innovate atrophies over time.
Rather than building something that has enduring value by executing faster than anyone, the focus becomes achieving growth at all costs. 

This ultimately leads to two outcomes:
1. The startup cannot sustain this growth and retention begins to look dire. The churn becomes unbearable and the startup goes out of business.

2. The startup gets acquired by someone bigger, allowing founders and investors to believe that they created value where none existed in the first place.

I am completely dejected at this.

The Death of Indian Innovation: Why Indian Start Ups are failing to Innovate?

Growth Manager

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

There are lot of startups and companies who say we dont have hierarchy or we follow open door policy, but internally you see things are way different as projected. What are your views on those things?

Views on companies who say “no hierarchy”

Data engineer

Two months ago I posted this rant on Grapevine (https://share.gvine.app/CLkpBuEqcCvrzKvx6) which I think is one of the most viral posts on the platform.

Since then I took a break, learned Vipassana, went to the mountains, read, and reflected. Here are some truth bombs that have been exploding in my head

1) There is a leadership crisis

Is it me or do today's self-proclaimed leaders just suck? Look around Grapevine: insecure toxic managers forcing people back to the office, overhiring CEOs who don't know WTF to do, and founders just abandoning ship. 

"Leaders" and founders today are about as disconnected from reality as the political class, because like politicians most of them are privileged, sheltered, and already wealthy.

2) Technological innovation doesn't mean progress. 

I couldn't laugh harder when I saw the Indus Valley report basically saying that maybe all of us VCs overestimated how much money we could make funding lending and consumer apps. 

Maybe funding lending apps that "open up credit for the poor" isn't sustainable when the rate of interest is >18%?

Technological innovation doesn't always mean real-world progress. A lot of times, it just ends up perpetuating and amplifying pre-existing inequality. 

3) Endless growth toward nothing 

Most of India's startup money comes from the West. Most of that money was just printed to repeatedly get out of an economic crisis. That's it. There was no great vision to fund the future of humanity behind all this new capital. Just Central Bankers and Presidents pressing the "Create Money" button to delay the inevitable.

Most of us here owe our wealth to Easy Money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpMLAQbSYAw

PS: A book, that completely flipped my worldview during this time is this: https://www.amazon.in/Debt-First-Years-David-Graeber/dp/0143422715. I urge all fellow foot soldiers of capitalism to read this.

Until the next rant, stay sane, safe, and debt-free!

Follow-up to the most liked Grapevine post ever

Product Marketing Manager

I have noticed that the best people from my college got into FAANGMULA companies and ultimately trashed their mind while making great money. Their tech development has literally grown slower than living in a buddhist monastery. Their stunted learning is a strict reminder of how people get trashed into bad engineers with good money. Ultimately you can't even switch companies because no one will hire you at your ZIRP salary while you can't even be 20% of your CTC in terms of productivity.

Do you also hate how FAANG transforms smart people into trash engineers?

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

First of all that event with sam altman was embarrassing. The aftermath was even more embarassing, leading the embarrassment squad was https://twitter.com/C_P_Gurnani/status/1667140990413537284?t=dei0Qm2UKg8SZNb4fHEAmA&s=19 

Dude accepted the challenge while paying his engineers 2.5LPA, running a service based company. After this he wants to compete with a proper product. 

His following tweets are just BS inspirational quotes and generic tweet about ramping investment in R&D. But how are you going to compete with open ai? Nothing has been said.


As Indians we have a very big ego, instead of accepting something as feedback why do we always go all out and try to match the other person by words and not action. Then these leaders will go and say action matters a lot more than words.

Admittedly, Sam didn't even mean that indian companies are hopeless. It's just that with 10M he said it's hopeless to compete on foundational models of open ai.


We don't have a tech leader or an ecosystem where we can say that we can take on open ai. We don't even have a global product that competes with big tech. So why are we full of anger if somebody points out a fact.

In comments, can we discuss a solution to the tech ecosystem being shit so we build the foundation on which we can eventually compete on a global level?

Embarrassed with our CEOs

Software Engineer

Was asking for some advice on fundraising. Got to know if you are building something with no revenue, literally impossible to raise.

He explained how hard it is even for the current founders and expecting 100s of startups to fail next year with talent going cheap due to all the layoffs.

Very hard to think how to monetise B2C if people don’t even link their credit or debit cards with Apple Pay and Android for in-app purchases. Also for B2B Saas, it’s better to build for US from India than building for India.

Just “profit” over growth now. Nothing else matters 💭

Had a chat with a Unicorn Founder

What are the unique problems that you faced working as a PM in a startup at various stages vs the ones in corporate?

Problems faced by a PM in a startup

Hi all,
I graduated from IIT Delhi and have been working at well established startup since. 
So for a while I have been wondering why we don't have any deep tech startups doing innovation. Don't get me wrong, there are startups doing innovations but not the kind of innovation which we would call industry shattering or taking the level up a notch. Most of these innovations are just integrating what others are doing in an aggregated platform. I again wondered this today when I saw cognition launching Devin the AI software engineer. They have a pretty small yet highly talented team. 
We in India too have highly intelligent folks educating themselves in CS, why don't we have this mindset (even I don't have this mindset). 
Is it about the difference in culture or a sense of security that folks in the US have that helps them be free from an economic point of view and try innovative things ?

Why don't we have deep tech ?

I feel there is no light for this tunnel for many more months to come. 11150+ Applications for 1 Post. Can't imagine the level of competition.

11,100+ applicants for 1 Job, Is market really getting better as mainstream says?

Analyst

Wipro layoffs 

https://www-businesstoday-in.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.businesstoday.in/amp/technology/news/story/cost-optimisation-at-wipro-hundreds-of-mid-level-jobs-slated-for-elimination-says-report-415528-2024-01-31?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17066948529697&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businesstoday.in%2Ftechnology%2Fnews%2Fstory%2Fcost-optimisation-at-wipro-hundreds-of-mid-level-jobs-slated-for-elimination-says-report-415528-2024-01-31

I worked in one of the WITCH company. Most of the middle Managers are just email routers and no real depth in expertise or hands on with technical. What do you think? How would this year pan out?

End of the road for IT middle Managers?

Senior Data Engineer

Why India lags behind in AI

We’ll be able to move mountains once we stop obsessing with IITians. They work their asses off to get into IITs to get high paying jobs, it’s as simple as that. Train tier-2,3 college students who have nothing to lose. You’ll achieve 100x more optimal results with 100x less investment.

Product Designer

Product Owner

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

I'll go first,

1. Paying fair wages
2. Ensuring work life balance + providing support 
3. Diversifying hiring from various backgrounds
4. Investing in learning and development

What other things do you think can be done?

Since there is so much talk about Indian companies, innovation and it's lack thereof, what do you think workplaces can do to make them more conducive to bringing in more innovation?

Welcome to Gadgets & Apps's Private Community

Top class innovation

Never join startups where there is no organisational structure whatsoever if youre coming from a very structured experience. My mind is just fried being at the same level for a year now doing everything I can.

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